Cackling with joy

Even after 40 years, sports card collecting still gives me unexpected moments of joy.  

If you've bought retail packs at Target, you probably know that they are limiting the amout of trading cards per purchase. I would hope that this is to discourage flipping, but I don't think that's particularly effective. For one, it's easy to flip pairs of mega boxes and blasters. For another, just about anyone buying more than two fat packs of Topps flagship is trying to build a set. How much can you make fliping those? Maybe $3?

Regardless, the cashier took two of my packs away last weekend. So I returned Tuesday with a devious and sinister plan to break the rules oooooh I'm such a rebel!

Step one: take two fat packs off the rack, run them through self-checkout, pay. Place the packs in cargo shorts pocket. 

Step two: turn around, re-enter the store, buy $60 worth of groceries... and two more Topps packs.

Step three: profit.

Before I reveal what was inside these packs, I should applaud Topps for keeping these reasonably priced. Panini Prizm and Donruss Optic 'value' packs give you 12-15 cards for $15 each - and some Optic packs are all base cards. Meanwhile, these 36-card packs of Topps baseball - with at least two inserts per pack - are still just $6.99. No wonder Target limits them to two per customer.

On the other hand, 144 cards doesn't yield nearly as many set fillers as it should. The inserts are plentiful(for better or worse) and so are the duplicates. I think I got about 30 dupes out of these.

Ugh... too many Christians

For $30 after tax I'd be happy with the 75-80 set fillers, a few nice inserts, and one of the key rookie cards. Here's the whole haul.

Well, almost all of it. In the middle of the second pack I noticed a card was turned upside-down and when I flipped it over I burst out in a joyous cackle - not excitement at first, but devious laughter. It felt like I was being rewarded for breaking the rules.

Wait a second... is that... ? 

Hahaha! What?!?! An on-card auto of an inner circle Hall of Famer numbered to 10?!? Out of a retail pack?!? Okay, sure, the corners are a little white because this was probably one of the packs in my pocket, and Carlton's signature is shaky as hell because he's 80-something years old, and I'm not a fan of this geriatric nut job at all, but... it's a hundred dollar card. Out of a retail pack I shouldn't have been allowed to purchase. 

Have you defied the 'two packs per purchase' rule? Done anything devious lately? I won't tell ;)

Thanks for reading!

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Barnes & Noble >>> Target

Christmas is just over a month away and my daughter's 16th birthday is even sooner, so I've been doing a lot of shopping for girly things I know nothing about. We're visiting my family in Connecticut for Thanksgiving, so I had to order what I could last week to ensure it would arrive before this coming Wednesday.

A Barnes & Noble opened nearby just as the school year was starting, and both my girls wanted books, so I stopped in on my lunch break. There was a woman practically harassing the cashiers and manager, over something that was going to be released the next day. The lady claimed that Wal-Mart and Target had already released them, so she couldn't understand why B&N wouldn't sell to her. She tried all the excuses -- you're losing out on sales, flippers are going to buy them all up. Can you hide one for me? Can you limit them to one per customer?

The staff stood firm - we're going to follow store guidelines, ma'am. Good on them. But now I was curious... what the heck was coming out the next day that this woman was going psycho for?!?!

Just in time for the holiday season, the highly anticipated Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Phantasmal Flames drops Nov. 14 

Part of me wanted to come back that morning and buy up all the Pokemon I could, but the collector in me sympathized with the kid who asked for them. My mom used to go to toy stores at the crack of dawn and ask the stock workers if they were unloading a fresh supply of Starting Lineup figures so she could get first look at the selection. 

And so, as a way to support the store for standing firm while also appeasing the collecting gods, I bought some cards.

Apparently this has been a thing for a while; we used to have a much bigger B&N that closed about three years ago. Never saw any cards in there. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection -- four or five different brands of football, a small amount of baseball, and Topps Holiday Basketball. 

Yes, Topps is back in the basketball business. I've seen some interesting breaks of Flagship, but didn't know there was a Holiday release until I saw two mega boxes sitting on the shelf.

I don't care if there's a towel relic of some first-round bust in here, I'm just happy to have my purchase in hand..

The closest big box retailer to me is Target, and they almost always have a good selection of sports cards. I stopped in to shop for my girls and naturally checked the card aisle for Topps Update baseball and Upper Deck hockey. They had neither. I'm used to Target not having any hockey (they had a couple blasters of last year's Skybox Metal. Ugh) But ... no baseball?!?! Very little football, too.

Target had gone all in on Topps basketball; 80% of the card aisle was NBA product. I had to order the cards I wanted on Target's website because they are not available in stores. 

And so, I went home and ordered everything I was going to buy. Delivery was scheduled for Thursday. 

My soon-to-be 16 yr old had her first detention that afternoon (three tardies) and would have been home at 2:45 p.m. on any other day. My 13 year old comes home around 3:10 p.m. I texted her this:

NOT GOOD!!!! We didn't get the f**cking box!!!

Someone must have swiped it off our porch in the 15-20 minute gap between delivery and my daughter's arrival. Son. Of. A. Bitch. $150 in merch - more than half of which was cards - gone. 

There were more deliveries on the way, Friday and Saturday. I ran home as soon as I saw the delivery photo on Friday, then ran back when I saw a FedEx truck on my lunch break. Picked those up without incident. Saturday though... that was the big one. 

First year without my wife/their mom + sweet 16 b-day + Christmas = $800 laptop. This was me all day Saturday:

Needless to say the laptop arrived safely. One more delivery tomorrow and gift giving is just about done.

But I needed to fill that megabox-sized hole from losing my merch. I've been pulling double parent duty for 2+ months, working and cleaning and shopping for the girls. I deserve a little retail therapy, no? 

I wasn't going be too greedy and buy hobby boxes from my LCS for triple digits. And I wasn't going to order online again, especially since the delivery date would be the day we leave for CT. That meant more retail hoops:

It's not what I wanted, but I can treat myself to baseball and hockey after my next commission check from 4 Sharp Corners comes in (or my Christmas bonus from work 😉)

Not that anyone reading this is a big basketball collector (where have you gone, Jon and Billy?) but here's the highlights of the basketball haul from Target, starting with Prizm:

The Topps hanger was pretty standard. But it was interesting to see a (licensed) Topps set in a sport other than baseball:

Team cards and a Grizzlies throwback. I don't mind these, I just wish Topps would 86 the captions. The words "stars", "shine(s)", "young", "duo", and "lead the way" appear multiple times in these six cards. The editor in me is fuming at the lack of creativity. 

Legends are definitely not short-print variations in NBA sets. I pulled four, including a Schrempf Sonics card:

What is that wordmark though? I do not remember that at all. 

Here's a side-by-side comparison with the Holiday set:

Sochan paying tribute to Dennis Rodman here

One thing I was curious about was the cutoff date for off-season acquisitions. 

These weirdos both changed teams over the summer, but KD is pictured with his new squad on the Holiday card, while MPJ - now with the Nets - is still a Nugget in Flagship. Durant's latest trade demand was granted on July 6th while the Nuggets offloaded Porter on July 8th.

Holiday was released one week after flagship. Durant is a Rocket in both; MPJ is a Nugget in both. 

The hits had some more Nuggets, including the Jokic ornament and blue glitter parallel. The Dylan Harper relic is a nice pull as well. 8-Bit Ballers and 1980-81 Chrome are Flagship inserts. 

More Dylan Harper here. Collation was a bit odd - not that I was expecting a Cooper Flagg. Of the 85 base cards in the box, 18 were duplicates. Cam Thomas - who is still pictured in his Nets jersey despite being traded to Denver in the Porter deal - appears three times. Guess I'll have to return to TCDB soon..

One more thing... after I put my books and basketball card box on the counter, the girl at Barnes & Noble asked me if I would like to buy an Advent Calendar -- from Topps:

Yes. Yes I would.

Looks like I'll be doing daily posts in December :)



Thanks for reading!



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Opening Day

This is how I celebrate receiving a job offer at a sports apparel company:

My local Target hasn't been this stacked in years. Prizm packs? Penny sleeves? Repack boxes? Hell yes!

The reason baseball is missing is because the only product available is 2023 Topps, and if I buy a pack of that I'll be tempted to build the set. I've got enough set projects left to complete as you can see here.

Don't worry, there will be baseball on this blog tomorrow. And the next day, and the next, and the next...

As for the job, it's right down the street. It pays more than any job my wife or I have ever had, and it's right down the street. At a sports apparel company! Did I mention it's right down the street?!??! 

The only obstacles left are my background check (no worries there) and my professional references. Hmmm. I sure hope they don't talk to the office manager at my last job. And I realllly hope they don't talk to my previous office manager, who was showing us back office boys the OnlyFans page of our administrative assistant and being very personally critical of her. Without an HR person to report it to, I was torn between defending my mentor/Best Manager Ever or the Witch Goddess I was swooning over. I'd like to think I would have done the right thing regardless, but I'll never know. 

Anyway, that's ancient history now. It blows my mind that I worked at that place as recently as 2022. You're not here for office stories, you're here for cards. So let's start cracking open some packs!

 The hockey repack promised seven packs, one sealed fat pack, and one "bonus item"...

A loose common with a corner ding. Grr. And I didn't get one sealed fat pack in this box. I got two.

To save time/space, here's the rundown of packs and pulls:

2017-18 Upper Deck Series One 5-card pack: Henrik Sedin, Ryan Kesler UD Canvas
2020-21 O-Pee-Chee 8-card pack: P.K.! Connecticut Cam! McAvoy! Ethan Bear retro
2020-21 Upper Deck MVP 5-card pack: some old Russian "rookie" on Winnipeg
2021-22 O-Pee-Chee 8-card pack: some Finnish backup goalie rookie for Trannah
2021-22 Upper Deck Series One 8-card pack: a Young Guns RC I could get for 45 cents on COMC
2021-22 Upper Deck MVP 6-card pack: Hedman, Bread Man, CT Cam again, Carey Price
2021-22 O-Pee-cheek 28-card fat pack: Pastrnak, Makar, Tanner Jeannot RC, two Winnipeg retros
2021-22 Upper Deck Extended 26-card fat pack: a Devils card, four Kraken, and an actual decent Young Guns RC that I can't get for two quarters on COMC.

the whole hundred-dollar haul

The hand-picked 2022-23 packs were not even worth mentioning. Nice cards though.

My football boxes are full, so I only picked up one pack of 2022 Donruss. I didn't pull a Packer or a notable rookie. 

Thud. Should I have picked a Panini Prestige pack instead? This is beginning to feel like a bad idea.

That only leaves the big prize - basketball. I sure hope that Optic or Prizm can save the day...

I sure hope that Prizm can save the day...

I pull one current superstar out of these packs and it's Ja Morant. Figures.

The patriotic 'bonus pack' parallels were underwhelming:

At least Tim Duncan pops up again. 

 

Good news! I pulled two different Prizm parallels of an active player with an MVP award on his resume.

Bad news? It's Derrick Rose:

Did you know that Cam Thomas was born in Yokosuka, Japan? Has he repped the rising sun in international competition? (googling....) Nope. He does not appear to have Japanese citizenship.

Welp, that was $100 spent. I guess my good luck went as far as getting a good job within walking distance. At least I've got some new stuff for trades and giveaways.

Could I have done better at the card shop two blocks away? Perhaps, but his hobby pack prices are higher than Target's fat pack prices. I would probably have ended up with significantly fewer cards and few (if any) significant 'hits'. 

Oh and the shopkeep just went on vacation anyhow. Store's closed for the next five days.

Tomorrow.... baseball!


Thanks for reading!




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Opening day

By now you've all heard the news about the MLB lockout ending and a 162-game season set to start April 7. I was hoping to celebrate this by picking up some packs of 2022 Topps at my local Target but the trading card section is still stuck in the pandemic, covered in non-sports kid stuff. 

I'd considered asking the cashier if they kept any baseball (or football) cards at the customer service center.. but his register froze while ringing up the customer ahead of us. I was going to wander up to customer service when my daughter found these for me:

There was a small section of the trading card aisle that was barren, except for five fat packs of 2021-22 O-Pee-Chee and an open box of 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP. Flippers don't want this stuff, and I wouldn't either if there were any other options (like the new 2021-22 Upper Deck flagship perhaps?)

Beggars can't be choosers, amirite? This was the first time I'd been able to pick packs off the shelf since late 2019! I have no idea what they cost, or if anything decent could be found in these packs (no Wander Franco for sure) And to be honest, I don't have room in my hockey card boxes for new stuff. I'll have to be selective about what I keep, and add the rest to my TCDB tradelist. I'll worry about that later. It's opening time!

Pack one:

Meh. Nothing grabs me out of this pack. I just met a guy at work today who saw my New Jersey Devils jacket and said "I'm from just outside of Philadelphia. Can we still be friends?" I told him "Why not? Both our teams suck this season."

Pack two (or three in the scan):

Canucks hot pack. I'll probably keep the Pettersson and offer up the other two on TCDB. Getting a new Nico Hischier is nice. I'd still like to see some more production from the former #1 overall pick, but at least he's healthy. Foolish flippers missed out on a chance to pull this fantastic Jan Jenik RC! Ka-ching!

Now for the O-Pee-Chee pack:

Two Connors and a Crosby! This is actually the second time I pulled a retro parallel of Sid the Kid in a single fat pack. A few weeks ago I went walking at the "pond" park down the street. The pond was frozen and a group of guys were playing hockey. I watched them for a few minutes and stepped away far enough to take a couple pictures.

Pond hockey might be a common sight where you live but I'd never seen a game in my area. From far away it looked like one of the guys was wearing a Pat LaFontaine Islanders jersey. I couldn't think of anyone else with a navy blue #16. Then I got closer.

Sasha Barkov? In this area? Cool!

By the time I was ready to leave the park a police officer had parked her car on the walking path and calmly told the boys that they couldn't play hockey here. I couldn't blame her; at one point the puck slid away from the thicker ice in the background toward the thin ice in the foreground. The guy retrieved it safely, but it was close to falling in water. And if the ice started to crack under his weight...

Anyway, back to the pack:

Decent selection here. The Talbot is my fave, I love that Wild jersey in North Stars colors. Bernier was signed by the Devils in July but is still pictured as a Red Wing because Upper Deck is way behind on updating their checklist. Flagship Series 1 wasn't released until March and somehow they still couldn't manage to fit any Seattle Kraken cards in the set. Also, David Krejci retired from the NHL and is playing in his native Czech Republic this season. And Jordan Staal looks to be playing in front of maybe 500 people. Can we move the Hurricanes to a market that will actually support them - like, I dunno... Hartford? 😜

Best of the rest. I liked Braden Holtby in Washington; he's now a backup in Dallas. I did get a Kraken player (if not a Kraken card) in Ryan Donato. Joe Shlabotnik has made nearly an entire team set in far less time than it takes for Upper Deck to produce one packed-out Kraken card. Jason Spezza is closing in on 1,000 career points. And by "closing in on" I mean "crawling toward". Aaron Ekblad is having a career year; if he played for a media darling like Detroit or New York he'd be the front-runner for the Norris trophy. 

I had planned to visit my mom in Connecticut tomorrow but since I said those plans out loud there is a bomb cyclone expected to hit the northeast. Which means I'll have to postpone my visit at least another week. It also means I'll have time for another post this weekend. Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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Flagship Roll Call!

Before I start my All-Time Teams project I have one more recent purchase to discuss.

 

The 2019 Topps cards were in the toy aisle, away from all of the other sports cards. I was not a fan of this year's design when it was released, but I got a good head start on the series 1 set in the surplus box I bought on eBay. Supplementing that with trades helped push me over 82% completion without buying one single pack (the downside is that many of the cards have corner dings.) 

I had just 22 cards from series 2 before my Target purchase. There was a metal sign at the top of the end cap with the price list for each type of box : $2.99/pack, $9.99/hanger box, $19.99/blaster box. 

My gut reaction was to pick up a blaster - and I did. But then I did the math in my head. For $20 I'd get 99 cards - and one of those would be a 150th Anniversary manu-patch thing. There would probably be an insert in every pack, and so now we're down to maybe 90 cards for my set.

I put down the blaster. I picked up those two beat-up hanger boxes. All of the hanger boxes were dented. But there's 67 cards in each (and no manu-patch) for a total of 132 cards. Even if 16 of them are inserts that means I'm getting 116 base cards - assuming there aren't any dupes between the two boxes. 

Let's see how I did..

My favorite thing about this year's set has to be the ballpark cards. Look at that sky above Citi Field! (Bonus - the names are in proper order.)

Some more horizontal cards, including an Andrew McCutchen cameo. I don't mind horizontal cards in flagship sets because I end up sleeving every card and stashing them in boxes anyhow. Topps sets are too big to display in binders (especially now that Ultra Pro shrunk the f*cking D-ring)

Some throwback threads here. Which one is your favorite?

More notable cards, including an Ohtani rookie cup. I guess that's Tulo's sunset card.

And if Dustin Pedroia really can't play anymore then I hope this is his sunset card. I know how annoyed collectors get when someone like Jacoby Ellsbury or Scott Kazmir keep popping up in sets when they haven't played in two years. I don't want them saying that about my guy.

Another reason I bought hanger packs instead of a blaster was to try and pull a Legends variation. I don't know that they're not inserted into blaster packs, but I thought the odds might be better with a hanger pack.

No such luck. 

Here are the inserts I did pull - minus a Steven Brault rainbow parallel that didn't fit in the scan.

I have no idea who Nick Martini is but the rest of the pack is solid. I've wanted this Yount for my PC and Koufax is an unofficial PC player. Scherzer is a blue parallel.

  

The second pack only had seven inserts - which gave me false hope for a Legend or other photo variation. The Judges and Larsen will go in a stack of Yankees/vintage I'm building for Bo.

This break was a bit of letdown considering the value I got from the Score Football fat packs, but the point was to get as many set fillers as possible. On that front, I succeeded.

Of the 117 base cards in these packs I needed 110. Anything over 98 would have made me happy. I've still got a long way to go to complete this set, but series 2 is off to a good start.

While I'm at it, here's a quick roll call of my progress with the last five Topps sets, which I'll call the Flagship Five.

2019 Topps

417 haves
283 needs
700 card set

variations: none

 

2018 Topps
698 haves

2 needs* (#540 Mitch Garver, #653 Jorge Soler)
700 card set

variations: 2 (#439b Dustin Pedroia, #550b Jackie Robinson)

*plus the corrected versions of #364 (Dodgers) and #565 (Mets) 

 

2017 Topps
614 haves
86 needs
700 card set

variations: none

 

 

2016 Topps

set complete

variations: 1 (#478 Cody Asche 42 jersey)

 

2015 Topps
set complete

variations: 1 (#302 Martin Prado Gatorade shower)

I'd like to complete at least one more of these before 2020 Topps comes out In five months. 

Are any of you (still) working on these sets? Let me know what you need, I have hundreds of dupes.

Thanks for reading!



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